Setting the Record Straight
by Karshtakavaar
Summary: Ivy has a bone or two to pick with the way she's portrayed. Note: This is an Alternate Universe Ivy, so OOC.


Definitely an alternative universe Ivy because, well, why not?

I don't own Poison Ivy, Batman or anyone else here, DC do. I'm not making any money from this, I just enjoy bending one of their characters out of shape for my own amusement.

**Setting the Record Straight**

Hello? Hello, anyone home? Hello? Oh, you are awake. Good. I'd hate for you to miss this. Yes, I'm sorry about the restraints. And the gag. The trouble is, you see, that I've been ignored for too long. Everyone else has had their chance to talk except me. Now that my turn has come I'd rather not be interrupted. On the plus side I am giving you an exclusive. That at least should be worth the minor inconveniences.

I suppose I should introduce myself. I'm Dr Pamela Isley, BS in Botanical Biochemistry, MS in Toxicology, PhD in Genetic Engineering. I've published papers in multiple top ranked journals, presented at international conferences and pulled in several prestigious grants. You will probably know me better as Poison Ivy, though. A ridiculous moniker propagated by the male hegemony that is the press, aided and abetted by those who style themselves as heroes (note the masculine, heroes not heroines). I have never called myself by that name, but then I suppose mud sticks, doesn't it? At least where women are concerned.

I would, by the way, appreciate it if you would correct the public perception of my academic record. Why you people can't do a basic fact check before you run your stories is beyond me. My papers are indexed, my thesis abstract is on-line, yet still you persist in your she-dropped-out-of-college line of reporting. I suppose I should have expected it. You barely treat Harley any better and nobody questions her qualifications - or her lack of sanity, bless her poor deluded soul.

You seem surprised at my appearance. I can't see why. I'll grant you the long legs and the D cup breasts are something of a heterosexual male turn on but... Ah yes, I forgot. Women can't have both brains and beauty, can they? It's one or the other. I have beauty so obviously I have nothing whatsoever between my ears. You have no idea how frustrating that belief is - or how prevalent. The number of people who seem to think I got my research grants by looking pretty or sleeping with some or all of the selection panel. Tiresome is not the word.

Women seem to believe it as well as men - especially the women. But then, there's nothing in the world like a jealous woman. Plants have it right, you see, as with so many things. There are gendered plants, holly bushes are one example, but they are few and far between. Androgyny rules. Would that it were so with humans. Life would be so much simpler.

Of course, then these would be useless – or at least in need of some modification. Do you like them, my little attitude adjusting thorns? I think they're kind of pretty. A little like me, if you will. Beautiful and far more complex then anyone ever gives them credit for. No doubt you'll have heard them called poison thorns or some such, I forget what the press appointed word is precisely. Poison. Funny. It's the placebo effect - mostly. Oh there's the odd active ingredient in there but not nearly enough to produce all the effects the so-called heroes complain about. Then again, you'd be surprised by the number of men who are happy to play submissive if they're provided with the right excuse. _But I was drugged. It's not my sexual fantasy at all. _Sure, you keep telling yourself that, Bats baby. By the way, I think Junior has a thing for red hair. Well, that's the only way I can explain his behaviour. Drugged or otherwise he can't seem to stop staring at mine. It's more than a little disconcerting trying to face him down when he won't look me in the eye because he's too busy oggling my hair-do. Still, I suppose it beats him staring at my tits, which is usually where Batsy looks.

Now don't give me that look. I realise the poison thorns are a blatant abuse of my sexuality. Though why that's supposedly worse than Bats using the superior strength characteristic of his gender to pin me to the floor I'll never know. I appreciate that to you using the thorns looks like the triumph of beauty over brains. Attempting to win by purely sexual means, a betrayal of all I have espoused. You're wrong. Who do you think designed the thorns? I'll give you a clue, try as hard as you might you'll not find them published anywhere. They're not on the files of any corporation. I spent years in the lab working on these, years. And do I get credit for it? What do you think?

"She was injected with experimental substances by her older, more experienced lover," the press say. "That's why she is who she is. Poor girl, yet another female victim of male malevolence." It couldn't possibly be that I followed the example of a Nobel prize winner, of Barry Marshall, and experimented upon myself. In case this isn't clear to you, sunshine, _I_ designed the modifications to those retroviruses. Me. Not my adviser, who, while we're on the subject, was never my lover. He never had any part in the project beyond trying to inform on me to the university authorities. He, of course, had to be dealt with. Fortunately I was beginning to see some effects of my modest little experiment by then. I'll confess that, like Marshall, I didn't quite anticipate the results of the initial experiment or of the long-term programme. I have no idea which of the insertion events it was, but the treatments have altered me into a being beyond a mere human female. The connection to Gaia, the goddess of nature, is buried deep within our DNA, deep in the most ancient parts of our genome, the pieces that have barely changed since we were primitive eukaryotes swimming in a warm sea. One of those insertion events must have awakened the link. It's...invigorating. You should try it.

The equipment? My humble research lab. I'm working on a pet project, of mine - plant toxins. You see this one? The one in this pretty little blue microfuge tube, this is an interesting little agonist that works on a receptor in the serotonin pathway. I isolated it from an orchid growing a rainforest in Ecuador. Looks like clear fluid doesn't it? Almost like a raindrop. A harmless little raindrop. I assure you it isn't. The mouse trials to date have been most promising. I'm busy splicing the gene for its production into _Arabidopsis_. The expression levels are still too low to really be of use but give me time.

Ah, they're here at last. Took them long enough. I think Bats maybe beginning to lose his touch. You can tell him I said that. Watch for the expression on his face. I'll lay a bet with you that his right cheek twitches just a little. It does that when he's really frustrated. Come to think of it, he's often really frustrated around me. Hmm. Time for me to depart, I think. I'll leave you to the tender mercies of the Bat and his sidekick. I'd appreciate it if you didn't forget this little chat, though, when the time comes to file your copy. Journalists are such a bore to deal with. I'd really rather not have to do this twice.

A/N By the way, Barry Marshall is a real Nobel prize winner who really did experiment on himself in the early 1980s. Google him.


End file.
